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Errors and misconceptions about the history of paperfolding

The following text appears in “Design”, a desktop publishing computer
program published by Adobe. A copy was posted to Origami-L, the Origami Internet List on 3rdSeptember,
2003 by a subscriber from Australia who said that the “Design” program
had Origami as the theme for many of its chapters, including photographs and
the following text on the history of Origami.

A short history of origami from “design”

”The name origami was coined in 1880 for the [Japanese] words ‘oru’ (to
fold) and ‘kami’ (paper). It started in the first century AD in
China. They say that's when papermaking started, and with papermaking came
paper folding. The Chinese developed some simple forms, some of which survive
to this day. Buddhist monks brought Origami to Japan in the sixth century AD.
It caught on quickly throughout the culture: paper was used in architecture
and in many everyday rituals. Many of the earliest designs have been lost,
since there was
nothing written down about origami until 1797 with the publication of the
Senbaduru Orikata (How to Fold One Thousand Cranes). The Kan no mado (Window
of Midwinter), a comprehensive collection of traditional Japanese figures,
was published in 1845.

“Origami flourished in other parts of the world, as well. Arabs brought
the
secrets of papermaking to North Africa, and in the eighth century AD, the
Moors brought the secrets of Spain. The Moors, devoutly religious, were
forbidden to create representational figures. Their paper folding was a
study in geometry. After the Moors were driven out of Spain during the
Inquisition, the Spanish developed papiroflexia, which sounds to me like
some sort of inflammation of the Pope's ligaments. Anyway, this technique is
still popular in Spain and Argentina.

“Modern origami owes its existence to a man named Akira Yoshizawa. In
the
1930's, Yoshizawa designed thousands of models of various subjects. He is the
originator of the system of lines and arrows used in modern paper folding.
He exhibited his work throughout the west in the 1950's and 1960's and helped
inspire many paperfolders in the West as well as Japan.

As origami evolves, elaborate folding techniques produce amazing models. In
our class, Judith specialized in creature fish and sea creature origami. During
the first two weeks of training, she produced a horseshoe crab, a goldfish,
a strikingly beautiful seahorse, a so-so squid, and a lopsided clam basing
her patterns on Barbour, Andreozzi and Robinson.

COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE by DAVID LISTER

My original comments were posted to Origami-L on 3rd September, 2003. They
evoked comments from two subscribers, Haori Koshiro and Kenneth Kawamura,
which I have incorporated as far as possible in the following revision of
what I originally wrote.

This piece gives me an opportunity of commenting on and, I hope, refuting,
some misconceptions about the history of Origami which appear all too frequently
and which get repeated from article to article and publication to publication
without any checking of their accuracy. So here are my comments. I give first
a section of the article from “Design” and then my comments on
it.

1. Statement: The name origami was coined in 1880 for the Japanese words “oru” (to
fold) and “kami” (paper).

Comment: The word "Origami" was coined in Japan as long ago as the
Western middle ages - I cannot give it a precise date, but Hatori Koshiro suggests
that it must be sometime in the late 12th Century. "Origami" was
originally used for a horizontal, rectangular sheet of paper called “tategami” which
was folded in half latitudinally. (If it was cut in half it was called “kirigami”.)
Origami of this kind were originally used for lists and letters and are still
used for the list of formal betrothal gifts. In the Edo era, the a folded origami
if this kind was used for a certificate (such as a certificate of the authentic
manufacture of a Japanese sword). Curiously, this usage is much the same as
the Greek word “Diploma”, which means a folded document and which
is used as a certificate. Today it is used for a certificate of academic qualifications.

In the 18th Century” the word “Origami” was occasionally
used in Japan as a term for ceremonial paperfolding and once or twice for recreational
folding. However, “Origami” was not normally used for recreational
paperfolding until the end of the 19th Century. Common words for recreational
paperfolding were "orikata" and "orisue", although these
words were also used fro ceremonial paperfolding. In the 1890s, "origami" informally
came to be adopted as the word for paperfolding in the traditional Japanese
schools in contrast to the German-inspired kindergartens which used words like "tatamigami",
probably because the traditional schools were trying to emphasise the native
tradition of paperfolding.

2. Statement: [Paperfolding] started in the first century AD in China. They
say that is when papermaking started and with papermaking came paperfolding.

Comment: The first rough paper was made in China around 100 BC. The Chinese
made improved paper in the first century AD and no doubt it was suitable for
folding. But there is not the slightest shred of evidence to indicate that
paperfolding (as opposed to paper making) started as early as this.

3. Statement: The Chinese developed some simple forms, some of which
survive to this day.

Comment: Paperfolding could well have stated in China - or in Korea or Japan
or, so far as we can tell from the absence of evidence of any kind - anywhere
else in the Old World. Most people (including me) incline to think that the
Chinese were the first to fold paper, but I must emphasise that it must be
accepted that this is mere conjecture. Presumably, wherever and whenever paperfolding
started, the first forms would be simple.

4. Statement: Buddhist monks brought Origami to Japan in the sixth century
AD. It caught on quickly throughout the culture.

Comment: Buddhist monks brought paper making with them from Korea to Japan
around 550 AD. But paper making is something entirely different from
paper folding. At first, the Buddhists required the purist white paper on which
to write their scriptures and this was the reason for their bringing paper
making to Japan. The native Japanese greatly improved the quality of paper
made. But did they fold it at his period? It is sometimes alleged that at that
time paper would be too expensive for folding, but there must always have been
waste sheets and scraps for people to play with. However, we do not know at
all whether they did fold it or whether they did not. It is certainly incorrect
to suggest that paper folding "caught on quickly throughout the culture".
[Presumably this is intended to mean Japanese culture.]

Paper has always been used in a variety of ways in the Shinto religion. Apart
from the use of paper for scriptures, there are a few instances of the use
of paperfolding in Buddhism, but in comparison with the use of paper in Shintoism,
they are very few.

5. Statement: Paper was used in architecture and in many everyday rituals.

Comment: When I was a child I was told that the Japanese built their
houses of paper. But this is nonsense because it does rain in Japan! Houses
were and still are built of wood unless stronger materials are used. However
the internal walls in houses were and often still are made from strong paper.
In more elaborate houses there are often paper walls, still today, and I
have seen them during my visits to Japan. They are especially used to divide
sections of temples where they may be decorated with pictures painted by
artists.

We know nothing of the use of paper in early everyday rituals. We can only
read backwards from the Heian Era (794 -1185) when, so far as we can see, strips
of cloth called Sheda and Heiroku (later known as O’Sheda and Gohei)
were used to indicate the boundaries of sacred sites and to indicate the
presence in the temple of the kami or deity. Later, the strips of cloth were
replaced by the zig-zagged strips of paper, but it is uncertain when this
happened.

Ocho and Mecho Butterflies, which were used to decorate flsks and kettles
for rice wine or sake may possibly date from the Heian, but probably came later,
in the Kamakura era ( 1185 - 1333) or the Muromachi era (1333 - 1568).

6. Statement: Many of the earliest designs have been lost.

Comment: Since we do not know what the earliest designs were, we are in no
position to say how many of them have been lost. The indications we have from
the first evidence of recreational Japanese paperfolding in the 17th Century
is that the number of designs was quite limited so few may have been lost
and it may be that we still have most of the early designs of Japanese paperfolding.

7. Statement: - since there was nothing written down about origami until
1797 with the publication of the Senbaduru Orikata (How to Fold One Thousand
Cranes).

Comment: The correct romanised spelling is Sembazuru Orikata, although some
writers prefer the spelling "Senbazuru". This printed book, which
appeared in several editions was the very first book of recreational paperfolding
in Japanese. It gives instructions on how to fold multiple cranes from a single
sheet of strong paper cut into smaller squares and connected at the corners.
This was a new and almost unique kind of paperfolding and it has little to
do with ordinary recreational folding, except that it incorporates the basic
design of the classic crane which had been known as single fold since long
before 1797.

The two printed sheets of paper known as "Chushingura Orikata" (it
is not a book) also date from 1797 and apparently from the same source. They
show instructions for folding simple human figures which are much closer to
ordinary recreational folding than the multiple canes of “Senbazuru Orikata”.

However, there was an earlier Japanese book of folding. This was, however,
not about recreational paperfolding but about ceremonial paper folding and
knotting. This was "Tsutsumi musibi no ki" by Sadatake Ise (1717
- 1784) which was originally published in 1764. In 1865, a reprint was published
in two volumes, one of tsutsumi wrappers and one of ceremonial mizuhiki knots.

8. Statement: The Kan no mado (Window of Midwinter), a comprehensive
collection of traditional Japanese figures, was published in 1845.

Comment: The so-called Kan no mado is a private manuscript compilation of
knowledge about diverse subjects in 233 slim volumes resembling western
exercise books. Volumes 27 and 28 are mainly devoted to paperfolding, both
ceremonial and recreational. The compilation was neither printed nor published
and was probably intended for private use and never intended to be published.
Only one copy exists of this encyclopaedia exists, which is in the library
of the Asahi newspaper in Osaka.

In about 1922 a facsimile copy was prepared by hand for Professor Frederick
Starr of Chicago University. This remarkably accurate facsimile is now in the
Library of Congress in Washington, but it is only a modern copy and has no
historical authority.

The compilation is understood to have been put together in 1845, but it is
likely that the separate parts were written and collected over a considerable
period. The whole work is divided into five parts, each having the word "gusa" which
means "fragments of memoranda" or, perhaps we should say, "scraps
of information". Volumes 27and 28 are in the section named Kayara-gusa,
but I have never found the meaning of the word "kayara".

The name of this encyclopaedia has been a subject of much discussion. The
Japanese characters for "Kan no Mado" appear written only at the
back of the manuscript copy of volumes 27 and 28 made for Professor Starr.
Nobody has ever found these characters in the original work in Osaka and it
is thought that the characters are written in this way in the Starr copy as
a result of a misreading of the original characters. They are in an antiquated
cursive script which is now difficult to read. “Kan no mado” would
appear to mean "window of the coldest season" and it may be an error
for very similar characters reading "fuyu no mado", which mean "winter
window". However, "Fuyu no mado" is the title of the fourth
of the five sections of the whole work and, of course, this section does not
contain volumes 27 and 28.

The modern Japanese prefer to use the name "Kayaragusa", which is
the title
of the second section. It has come to be assumed that this is the name of the
whole encyclopaedia, but I question whether this is correct. Perhaps there
is another name for the whole of the work, but I have never heard of it and
I suspect that more research needs to be done.

9. Statement: Origami flourished in other parts of the world, as well.

Comment. Perhaps or perhaps not! Let us see the evidence before we assent
to it as a fact. There are indications that paperfolding was known in Europe
in the middle Ages and certainly by 1614, when John Webster referred to paper
fly-traps in his play "The Duchess of Malfi". This date is, in fact
earlier than the first firm date we have for recreational folding in Japan.

10. Statement: Arabs brought the secrets of paper making to North Africa,
and in the eighth century AD, the Moors brought the secrets to Spain.

Comment: The Arabs learnt paper making from Chinese paper makers captured
during a conflict at Samarkand in 751 AD. It spread through the territories
conquered by Islam. By 1036 AD the Moors had brought paper-making to Cordoba
in southern Spain, which was still occupied by them. Paper was first made in
a Christian-controlled part of eastern Spain near Valencia in 1144. The possibility
that the Moors had a knowledge of paperfolding cannot be absolutely ruled out
but there is no evidence whatsoever that paperfolding accompanied the knowledge
of paper making or that the Moors introduced paperfolding into Spain.

Comment: Despite general assumptions, it is not true that the Koran or the
Islamic religion forbid all representation of humans or animals. Persian art
contains an abundance of pictures of human figures. However, in deference to
the second commandment of the Hebrew scriptures, often known as the Old Testament
(which is accepted by Muslims), the Arabs and Moors began to refrain from depicting
human beings and living creatures. What started merely as a custom of abstinence
from depicting living creatures evolved into an absolute rule. (The wearing
of veils by women is a similar sort of social, but not a religious development).
But certainly, there are no representations of living beings in the artistic
legacy of the Moors in Spain

12. Statement: Their paper folding was a study in geometry.

Comments: The Islamic peoples developed most intricate geometrical designs
with which to decorate their buildings. To study them is a delight. And they
employ their own kind of geometry. I have several books devoted to the subject.
But the interlacement of lines in Islamic patterns is wholly different from
the crease patterns of paperfolding and consequently Islamic pattern could
not have given rise to paper folding. Incidentally, Moorish pattern often resembles
Celtic patterns of knotting.

In "Folding the Universe", page 26, Peter Engel gives a reproduction
of a
17th century Persian manuscript which is a copy of an earlier but undated,
Arabic text. This does, apparently, show the use of paper folding to design
simple floor and wall tiles, similar to some of those in parts of the Alhambra
Palace in Granada in southern Spain. But they are far removed from the interlaced
lines of more complex Islamic decoration. However, these patterns do not in
any way resemble the patterns of recreational paperfolding. (They are more
like the crease patterns of a map by Professor Koryo Miura). And in any event,
Persia is a very long way from Spain.

13. Statement: After the Moors were driven out of Spain during the
Inquisition, the Spanish developed papiroflexia, which sounds to me like some
sort of inflammation of the Pope's ligaments.

Comments: The kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were united under King
Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in1479 and they determined to reunite the whole
of Spain as a Christian country. The Moors were finally driven out of southern
Spain by them in 1492 when Granada was reconquered. The Spanish Inquisition
was not an instrument for the repulsion of the Moors, but developed its savage
ferocity later as an instrument of suppressing Christian heresy after the
whole of Spain had been reunited.

The word "Papiroflexia" was one of the words devised by Dr. Vicente
Solorzano Sagredo in Argentina in the 1930s and he wrote many books with "papiroflexia" in
the title. Other words devised by him (he published a long list of his own
neologisms) were "papiorola" for a paperfolded model and "deltoidology" for
the science of paperfolding, from the shape of the classic bases when collapsed
flat.

14. Statement: Anyway, this technique is still popular in Spain and Argentina.

Comments: Yes, paperfolding is now popular in Spain and Argentina. But this
popularity is largely to be attributed to Miguel Unamuno, (1864 - 1936) the
Spanish philosopher and poet, and Rector of Salamanca University, whose paperfolding
anticipated, in some respects, the work of Yoshizawa thirty or forty years
later, and inspired many followers in both Spain and Argentina. But we cannot
say that this popularity derived from the Moors. There are vague reports that
paperfolding was popular in Spanish villages and even in prisons in the 19th
Century, but when people came to search for this traditional folding, it had
vanished without trace or it had merged into the folding of the followers of
Unamuno. Did it really ever exist? The Spanish like to claim that they invented
paperfolding. But taking paperfolding in Europe as a whole, I find it difficult
to see that Spanish paperfolding before Unamuno was any different from paperfolding
in the rest of Europe. Spanish paperfolding has now merged with the international
paperfolding movement, but you will rarely catch the Spaniards using the word "Origami" except
when they are off guard!

15. Statement: Modern origami owes its existence to a man named Akira
Yoshizawa. In the1930's, Yoshizawa designed thousand of models of various
subjects. He is the originator of the system of lines and arrows used in modern
paper folding.

Comments: Yoshizawa was born in 1911 and started folding when he was aged
about 3 years old. He was mainly self-taught. I firmly believe that although
Unamuno started folding creatively at the end of the 19th Century, Yoshizawa
was the principal originator of modern creative origami. He was certainly making
new discoveries in the 1930s, but whether he created "thousands" of
models in the 1930s is a statement open to question. We owe much to him and
in many ways, including the emphasis on uncut paper, new bases, a creative
approach to origami, wet folding and his system of diagrams using lines and
arrows. (But Robert Harbin also identified the common bases and named the basic
moves of folding. Then in “The Art of Origami” (1961) Samuel Randlett
pulled everything together into the standard system we use today in the West.).

16. Statement: Yoshizawa exhibited his work throughout the west in the 1950's
and 1960's and helped inspire many paper-folders in the west as well as Japan.

Comments: Yoshizawa originally exhibited his work in Japan in the early 1950s
but his work was later exhibited in the West by Gershon Legman in Amsterdam
in 1955 and by Lillian Oppenheimer in New York in 1959. Yoshizawa sent them
models he had previously folded or which he had specially folded for the exhibitions.
Since then there have been few exhibitions in the West devoted to Yoshizawa,
except for those small exhibitions he has put on himself during his frequent
ambassadorial visits to many countries of the world. In Japan he has continued
to put on many stunning exhibitions, often very large ones, showing the great
diversity of his approaches to origami.

Comment: If anything this is a gross understatement! Much of the recent elaboration
and complexity of paperfolding has been made possible by the marriage of traditional
paperfolding techniques with mathematics.

18. Statement: In our class, Judith specialised in creature fish and sea
creature origami. During the first two weeks of training, she produced a
horseshoe crab, a goldfish, a strikingly beautiful sea horse, a so-so squid,
and a lopsided clam, basing her patterns on Barbour, Andreozzi, and Robinson.

Comments: With no disrespect to Barbour, Andreozzi and Robinson, the
complex folding of sea creatures originated with Peter Engel in “Folding
the Universe” (1989) and John Montroll and Robert J. Lang in "Origami
Sea Life" (original Antroll edition, 1990.) At the time their folding
of creatures with many limbs and antennae seemed miraculous. I think theses
folders deserve the credit for removing all boundaries limiting what can be
folded from an uncut sheet of paper.

19. A Final Question: How did this article in the Adobe Design program come
to be written?

Comment: It would appear to be the work of a journalist or amateur folder
who had been given the task of writing about the history of origami. Whoever
it was has copied uncritically from earlier articles, which themselves frequently
copy from previous writers and so errors are repeated and go uncorrected. The
writer had certainly not learnt that all that appears in print is not always
true.

As you may have gathered, I’m not at all impressed! But for myself,
I freely admit that I what I write may contain errors, so as always, I shall
be very grateful to be contradicted where I have gone wrong or where my reasoning
is faulty. And any new evidence will be MOST welcome, even if it contradicts
what I have written.

20 A Postscript: Was Leonardo da Vinci a paperfolder?

Although he was not mentioned in the Adobe Design program, Leonardo da Vinci
has frequently been confidently asserted to have been a “great paperfolder”.
Is this assertion true? As a supplement to my comment on the Adobe “Design” program,
I have decided to add a brief discussion of this further questionable assumption.

Comment: It is well-known that Leonardo had an unusually enquiring mind and
was involved in many scientific investigations and experiments. In particular,
he was interested in flying and drew up plans for ornithopters (aircraft that
flap their wings like birds) gliders and helicopters. In some of the diagrams
that he drew, it appears that he may have used membranes to form the wings
of his aircraft. If so, were these of paper? More likely they would of parchment
or vellum, although paper was already being made in southern Europe during
Leonardo’s lifetime.

In his introduction to the catalogue of the exhibition “Plane Geometry
and Fancy Figures” held at the Cooper Union Museum in New York during
the summer of 1949, (the exhibition at which models by Akira Yoshizawa were
displayed) Edward Kallop wrote:

“In the Codex Atlanticus, that monument to the scientific mind of Leonardo
da Vinci, are found a number of geometric exercises that clearly make use of
folding as simple visual illustrations with one in particular a near duplicate
of the typical folded paper aeroplane of today. In some instances, the text
contains the word “falcata”, meaning “bent” of “folded”,
and while there is no mention of material of any kind, it is not difficult
to imagine Leonardo would have found paper a more tractable medium than cloth”.

In the notes to his Introduction, Kallop lists six references to illustrations
in the Codex Atlanticus. Roberto Morassi of Florence in Italy, one of the founders
of the Italian origami society, Centro Diffusione Origami, subsequently examined
each of these figures in the Codex Atlanticus, but reported that in his opinion
none of the illustrations represented paperfolding.

I myself can only confirm that among all of the reproductions of Leonardo’s
aircraft that I have seen, I have not seen anything resembling what we call “origami”.
Peter Engel shows a page of one of Leonardo’s notebooks on page 28 of
his “Folding the Universe” So readers may make up their own minds.
Some edges of foldable materials appear to be folded over, but does this amount
to “paperfolding”

Conclusion: Since the late 19th Century when Unamuno was folding and since
1952, when the work of Yoshizawa was first brought to the notice of the Japanese
public, we have learnt much about the history of paperfolding. This has been
achieved by assiduousness and patient research by a very small number of investigators,
helped by others who have recorded scraps of information which they have unexpectedly
come across. It is a slow process and our picture of paperfolding over the
ages must continuously be brought up to date as new information is found, even
if it makes us abandon ideas which have long been cherished.. Uninformed conjecture
and slavish repetition have no place in this process and old ideas must always
be weighed against new facts as they come to light. Only in this way will our
knowledge of the history of Origami be advanced.

David Lister.

Grimsby, England.

3rd September, 2003.

(Revised and with an added postscript on Leonardo and paperfolding and a new conclusion 21st November, 2004.)